annotated bibliography of new zealand research into family violence

articles from the CEDAW report are examined to chart New Zealand’s progress inimplementing each article. Examples of topic areas covered include education, employment,political and public life, sex roles and stereotyping, and rural women. Sections withinformation specific to family violence include article 12, "Health", and article 16, "Marriageand Family Life". Article 12 briefly discusses elder abuse initiatives to be implemented.Article 16 reviews the Guardianship Act (1968), particularly changes to legislationincorporating the role of grandparents in child custody cases. The principles and goals of TeRito: New Zealand Violence Prevention Strategy (2002), the Government’s 5-year plan toeliminate domestic violence, are outlined. A brief description of strategies targeting refugeeand migrant women who experience partner abuse is included. The appendix containsinformation collated from the consultation process in writing this report, which involvedholding 22 workshops throughout New Zealand to obtain women’s views on the issues raisedin this document. In relation to the issue of violence, it was revealed that women want toaddress the origins of violence to engender social change, as opposed to the current reactiveintervention strategies employed to target this problem.Mitchell, K. J. (2001). Rape in the news: Media portrayals of rapists, victims and rape in NewZealand. Unpublished master’s thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.See: www.nzfvc.org.nz/13254.pubTopic Areas: Sexual assault/rape, Women, Perpetrators/offenders, Victims/survivors,Cultural factors, Gender, Media violenceAbstract: In this study, the author analysed news media coverage of high profile rape casesto reveal the media’s understanding of rape. The cases were chosen for their ability tohighlight the different aspects of the offender, victim or crime. In line with the internationalliterature on which it builds, the findings of this study show a significant disparity betweenthe media’s portrayal of rape and women’s realities of sexual violence. Women’s typical rapeexperiences involve incidents in which the woman knows the rapist and does not sufferexcessive physical violence. Conversely, media accounts of rape typically involve strangersand extrinsic violence. Furthermore, when the media does cover acquaintance rapes, themodel of the violent stranger rape is used as the benchmark against which truth andseriousness are measured. Acquaintance rape is rarely held to be as serious as ‘real’ (violentstranger) rape, and aspects of victims’ behaviour and character are scrutinised for clues to hercredibility.This thesis finds that media representations of rape are therefore informed by ideologicalassumptions regarding gender appropriate behaviours. These stereotypical notions ofmasculinity and femininity are used to underpin explanations of rape. The credibility of bothoffenders and victims relies on being perceived as existing within these constructs. A victim’stransgression of feminine norms means that coverage is likely to be less supportive of her,and the rape is assumed to be less significant. An offender’s failure to fit the masculinestereotype means he is more likely to be configured as a ‘real’ rapist. The media’sunderstanding of rape is thus underpinned by the dominant discourse, in which rape is ungendered,infrequent, and associated with monster-like men, quite unlike ‘normal’ men. Thisstudy situates the media as supportive of the status quo in which rape is one tool of the socialcontrol of women.Source: Author’s abstractMoffitt, T., & Caspi, A. (1999). Findings about partner violence from the Dunedin multidisciplinaryhealth and development study. Washington DC, USA: US Department of Justice. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2006, from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/170018.htm127